


The Apex Of Strangeness

by ElenaCee



Series: Devil's Trap [18]
Category: Lucifer (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Domestic Fluff, Established Relationship, F/M, Original Character(s), Wings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-19
Updated: 2018-01-19
Packaged: 2019-03-06 19:22:01
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,260
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13417968
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ElenaCee/pseuds/ElenaCee
Summary: Chloe is having a strange, normal day. Then again, considering who and what she is and who and what she's with, what exactly is normal?





	The Apex Of Strangeness

**Author's Note:**

> This is the Slice Of Life chapter. It's a bit of a departure from this series; I hope you like it.
> 
> As always, thanks so much for all your kudos, comments, and bookmarks on the preceding parts of this series, and I'm so sorry for being so bad at replying. Be assured that I cherish every single one of them. <3

“This one is looking better,” Chloe whispered, gently running her fingers over a dark red, ridged scar before leaning down to kiss it.

The Devil sighed in pleasure, which probably had more to do with the touch of her lips to his forehead than with her words.

“So’s this one,” she added, repeating the caress and the kiss on another part of Lucifer’s face where another scar from the burns he had sustained during his fall disturbed the smoothness of his red skin. It, too, seemed less pronounced somehow than she remembered. She fervently hoped it meant that, at long last, the damage he had sustained during his Fall was finally healing.

“Hmmm,” Lucifer hummed. Chloe considered that it could mean a lot of things, from “I don’t think so” to “I don’t care” or possibly “don’t let that stop you”.

She smiled, kissing that same scar again, which made his feathers puff and slowly smoothe again as he shivered in pleasure, one of his wings briefly coming off the bed before slumping back down.

Dawn was just breaking over Los Angeles, which meant hours to go still before duty’s call would intrude into the private little paradise that was Lucifer’s penthouse (or, more precisely, his bed). By now, waking up early - when Lucifer did - and spending a while caressing him and grooming his feathers for him in that twilight time between night and day before going back to sleep had become a cherished habit for Chloe.

With her recent vision, said habit was experiencing extra reinforcement. As long as she had anything to say about it, Lucifer Morningstar would not start a single day on this Earth without knowing in every cell of his body how much he was loved.

“Well, does it feel better?” she insisted, running her fingertips over the ridges of his Devil face. He’d told her once that he wasn’t in pain, or, as he had put it, it had “stopped hurting around the time humans invented bows and arrows”, but she was well aware that he wasn’t above obfuscating the truth sometimes. Maybe what he really should have said was that it had become tolerable.

“Feels ecstatic,” he finally managed to form words. Barely.

She smiled. She loved making him incoherent.

He sighed again, his wings briefly extending to their full length to both sides of him as he lay on his back, stretching and relaxing again. Then he reared up to give her a playful kiss, still in his Devil form, before getting up and drawing the duvet back over her, tucking her in with a gentle caress to her face.

Such a little thing, but Chloe realized what it meant. Not only wasn’t he changing back to his human form, he also was deliberately cutting his own cuddling time short, secure in the knowledge that there would be more of the same before the day was out. Just a few weeks ago, he would have stayed with her, greedy for every little touch and only reluctantly letting her go back to sleep. But now, he was beginning to trust. Sometimes, her heart ached with how much he was evolving.

Snuggling back down, she listened to the sounds of his wings folding and vanishing, his naked feet retreating on the Italian marble, and the shower coming on shortly thereafter. She closed her eyes, waiting for sleep to reclaim her. When she woke up again, she knew that there would be coffee prepared for fresh brewing and breakfast ready for reheating in the microwave.

Today, though, Chloe found it difficult to go back to sleep.

Half-remembered words exchanged between two Archangels, together with that vision she’d been sent recently, were coalescing into a new status quo for her. Apparently, she was now immortal. Also, seemed like God Himself had given His blessing for her union with the Devil.

She pushed her face into her pillow to stifle her chuckle. That was just crazy. Or rather, it was currently on top of her list of Crazy Things Happening To Her Since She Met Lucifer. She was a Heaven-sent miracle apparently, a fact she had mostly ignored so far and thus barely come to terms with. Then, there were the more normal bits - one of her friends was a demon, another one was an angel.

Well. Relatively normal bits, and only because Chloe had grown used to the thought by now. This was also why the least crazy bit about it all was the fact that her mother saw no issue with her only child and literal Satan being an item. She, too, had grown used to the thought.

The shower sounds had stopped, which meant that Lucifer had segued to the time-consuming tasks of banishing his curls and fine-tuning his stubble. As was only fitting, the Devil was vain and prideful, and leaving his lair looking any less than perfectly groomed was unthinkable, no matter how often Chloe told him that he looked adorable all fluffy and unkempt. Because, apparently, while being prideful was a deadly sin, calling him adorable was reason for immediate execution.

Not literally, of course. He’d never lay a finger on her for thinking or saying that, or for doing anything else, for that matter. In the Devil’s presence, she was as safe as she could be. In fact, Chloe considered herself to be the best protected person on Earth, possibly in the whole universe.

_ Careful, Decker, _ she told herself.  _ You’re in danger of losing your grip on reality. _

Which was ironic, since her reality included the Devil, an angel, a demon, and the fact that she only existed because God Himself had willed it so in defiance of her parents’ natural constraints. Pretty hard to get a grip on any of that being real in the first place.

 

* * *

 

Near midday, Chloe received a call from Trixie’s school that was yet another symptom of the strangeness her life had descended into. Apparently, one of the side effects of knowing Satan personally, at least for Trixie, was a readiness to spring to his defense, which, in turn, raised concerns with the faculty.

“I don’t really know how to put this, Chloe,” Miss Turner, Trixie’s form tutor, began when Chloe had sat down. “Have you noticed anything about your daughter’s behavior recently that might indicate an inclination towards, well….” She gave a small laugh and a dismissive gesture. “Satanism?” she finally finished.

Chloe felt the laugh bubbling up but stopped herself. It probably wouldn’t be received right. Miss Turner meant well, but, like so many others, she didn’t have the full story. “Well,” she hedged, “we’ve tried to give her a broad education about all sorts of religion -”

“Of course, of course,” Miss Turner interjected.

“... And I wouldn’t consider being a Satanist per se a bad thing -”

“Of course not, of course not.”

“… But I really think that this is about my partner. His name is Lucifer Morningstar.”

The teacher’s eyes widened. “The nightclub owner?”

“Hmhm.”

“He’s your partner? As in, your life partner?”

“Hmhm.” Chloe was looking forward to the rest of the parents in Trixie’s class learning about that change in her personal status at the next parents’ evening. Last time, she’d held the truth back because she hadn’t been ready for just this reaction. Now, though, she was.

Miss Turner gave her a look that indicated quite clearly both her outrage at this inappropriate choice of partner and her respect for the fact that Chloe should have been the one to net one of LA’s most eligible bachelors.

Chloe gave her a what-can-I-say look. “Trixie adores him, and with that name, it’s easy to get confused.”

Miss Turner shook her head. “I wish it were that simple, but she specifically spoke in favor of the Devil, not any man called Lucifer. Her exact words were ‘the Devil isn’t evil, and he never made you’ - that’s Sarah she was talking to, Sarah Gardiner - ‘do anything you didn’t want to do in the first place’.”

Chloe hid her smile. Lucifer would be so proud of her daughter.

“It’s not the first time she’s said anything like this, either. So, maybe you can see why we’re getting a bit concerned.”

“Yeah, I see,” Chloe said noncommittally.

“Have you ever noticed anything unusual…?”

“Like her building a shrine to Satan in her room, or making sacrifices of raw chicken?” Chloe couldn’t resist asking. She could certainly see how Lucifer got so much glee out of this kind of thing.

Miss Turner nodded uncomfortably. “Trixie’s a smart girl, always has been, but lately, she’s been giving, let’s say, some very unusual input in teacher-class dialogues and even in her presentations and essays. She’s very adamant about it all being true, too. I always put it down to her having an unusually active imagination, but by now she should really be old enough to distinguish fact from fiction, yet she still talks about the Devil as if she knew him personally, so….”

Again, Chloe was obliged to bite her lip. “I’ll talk to her.” If only about being a little more circumspect.

“I mean, really,” Miss Turner went on. “Hell is blue? Where does she get these things from?”

Chloe shrugged her most expressive shrug.

“The Devil has wings, white wings, but no horns nor a tail?”

She shrugged again.

“Chloe, if you put your daughter on any unusual meds - not that I’m judging -, we should know about it.”

That remark clearly was meant to give her an out. The faculty wouldn’t have to worry about a potential little Satanist among their charges while Chloe would be off the hook about her methods of educating her daughter.

However, if the Devil didn’t lie, then she shouldn’t, either. Besides… “No,” Chloe said, “no meds. There’s actually a good explanation for all of this, but I doubt you’d believe me, so I’d rather not mention it. Also, this seems to me to be a non-issue. Isn’t the Church of Satan a recognized, state-sanctioned religion by now?” It had been a topic over dinner at one point, with Lucifer going on and on about how he didn’t mind them as long as they didn’t try to summon him, but he didn’t want or need to be worshipped except on the altar of passion, at which point the conversation had derailed a little.

Miss Turner gave her a look. “Chloe, you’re not telling me you’re actually Satanists, right?”

For the third time, Chloe had to suppress a grin. She proudly considered herself to be the premier Devil-worshipper on the planet right now, and Trixie was one of Lucifer’s most fervent admirers, so that would be a resounding ‘yes’.

If Satan were here, Chloe considered, he’d have put Miss Turner in her place long before this in that inimitable way he had. Time to do what Trixie had done and spring to her Devil’s defense.

“It shouldn’t matter if we are,” she said, “and I suggest you listen to my daughter instead of telling her to shut up. She knows what she’s talking about. A lot of Christians get the Devil wrong, which is at the root of so many problems. But Trixie isn’t one of them.”

 

* * *

 

The strangeness didn’t stop there. When, later that same day, Chloe made a pitstop in her apartment to collect a change of clothing and a couple of Blu-Rays (they should really discuss moving in together wherever, if for no other reason than that this constant back-and-forth of laundry and personal items would finally stop), she found a young man waiting at her door.

“Can I help you?” Chloe asked, friendly enough considering that this might be a police matter.

“You Chloe Decker?” the young man returned her question with a question.

Detecting a smidge of antagonism in his voice, Chloe put down her duffle bag in case she needed her hands free. “Yeah. And you are?”

“You seem nothing special,” the young man said, ignoring her question. “I don’t understand.” He was sounding confused now rather than belligerent.

Listening to her gut, Chloe made a quick - and, she hoped, not too reckless - decision. “Okay, why don’t you come in, tell me what’s wrong, and maybe I can help you understand?”

The young man scoffed bitterly. “Oh, it’s clear enough. He chose you over me. Simple enough, right?”

_ Oh. _

Chloe supposed it had to happen at one point or another - one of Lucifer’s conquests deciding that “the best night of my life” was more than just meaningless sex. In fact, she was perpetually surprised it didn’t happen more often. Being with Lucifer was special, and not just because of the spectacular sex. He made you feel like you were the center of his universe, literally knew your deepest desires and acted on them without hesitation. He wasn’t temptation incarnate for nothing. Of course he made everyone feel like there could be more to being with him than just sex.

“What I don’t understand is why he chose you. And I just… I had  _ hopes, _ okay?”

“I understand,” Chloe said, because how could she not? She might be immune to Lucifer’s supernatural charm, but even she could see that he wasn’t too far off the mark comparing himself to walking heroin.

“I’ve just come from his place,” the young man went on, “wanted to get together again, but he told me it wasn’t happening. Told me we’re over, because he’s found someone. I couldn’t believe it. Still can’t.”

“I’m sorry,” Chloe said sincerely. “I’m sure he didn’t actively do anything to lead you on -”

“Besides sleeping with me and being the man of my dreams, you mean?” There was raw pain in his voice now. “I assume you’ve been there, so you must know what I’m talking about. Have you  _ heard _ him sing? I’ve been seeing him, on and off, for half a year. I was traveling these last few months making up my mind about committing, and now I’ve come back to this.” He took a steadying breath. “But why on earth did he choose you? I don’t get it.”

Chloe looked at him, at a loss for words other than things that would make her sound crazy.

“I mean, I  _ know _ it’s not because you’re a woman,” he went on, now close to tears. “I tried to be whatever it is he’s looking for, but clearly…. Well.” He forced a smile. “Sorry. I didn’t come here to go all emo on you. Hell, I don’t even know why I came here. I’ll leave. Sorry again.”

Still not knowing what to say, Chloe had to let him leave without another word.

 

* * *

 

“ _ It’s the ciiiiircle of life, _ ” Sachiel was bellowing at the top of his lungs, one hand holding an imaginary microphone and the other a very real glass of whisky, “ _ and it moves us all through despair and hope….” _

Lucifer looked up from the keys at his handiwork and saw that it was good. This was  _ so _ much better than brooding. Everyone was wearing clothes, too. Chloe would be proud of him. And since Sach was having so much fun with it, he segued right back to the start of the chorus and added his voice in harmony.

Amenadiel, next to him holding one of his unspeakable cocktails, easily followed with the bass line. The big lout was actually enjoying himself; who would have thought. It all went to show how much more fun life was when you gave in to your desires instead of feeling sorry for yourself all the time.

Oh, yes. Now all that was missing was some female voices. Or rather, one voice in particular.

Letting his left hand continue with the accompaniment, Lucifer used his right to fish his phone out of his pocket and speed-dial the love of his eternal life.

“I was just about to call you,” her voice came from the device before he had a chance to speak.

“ _ In the path unwinding, _ ” Sachiel was singing, with Amenadiel adding a very inspired ooh-ooh modulation that actually raised goosebumps on Lucifer’s forearms.  _ Someone _ had clearly missed this kind of thing. Well, they could all thank him later.

“There was a young man here at mine just now… - what’s going on? Lucifer, you’re not having a party at this time of day, right?”

“Of course I am,” Lucifer said, hooking to phone between shoulder and ear to let his right hand rejoin his left on the keys. “What’s time got to do with it?  _ It’s the ciiiircle, the circle of life. _ ”

“Lucifer…?”

“Yes, my love?” He remembered why he’d called her. “Oh, what’s your voice pitch? From the sounds I’ve made you do so far I’m guessing mezzo soprano.”

There was that low chuckle from her end of the line that he loved so very much. “Now I’m afraid to ask why.”

“We’re having an impromptu angelic choir and we need a female voice,” he explained anyway.

“So you’re asking  _ me? _ ”

Sach and Amenadiel had meanwhile started over, on the general basis that if it’s worth singing once, it’s worth singing twice, so he modulated back to first verse. “ _ From the day we arrive on the planet…” _

“You’re heaven-sent, which is almost as good as actually created there as far as I’m concerned, so yes, I’m definitely asking you, Chloe. I could do the falsetto, of course, but with Amenadiel in bass that would leave just Sach in tenor, and while he’s quite good, not even he can sing in harmony with himself.  _ More to do than can ever be done…” _

She chuckled again. “Well, at least you’re having fun. How  _ is _ your brother?”

“ _ With the sun rolling high  _ \- Come on over and find out, my love.”

“I’m tempted, but I’ve got to get Trixie from school, and dinner won’t make itself.”

“ _ It’s way too small _ \- Well, bring the spawn, and we’ll make food here.”

She made that sound she made when she was ready to be persuaded and just needed a little push.

Lucifer was glad to provide said push. _ “It’s the ciiiircle of life,” _ he sang by way of motivating her.

Amenadiel brought his mug close to the phone to add “doo doo” while Lucifer shifted tonic to subdominant and back to tonic.

 

* * *

 

_ “It’s the ciiiircle of life….” _

Chloe shook her head, smiling with a mixture of amusement and gladness. Lucifer sounded happy. He was gathering his family around him, doing Celestial things together. Recreating Heaven on Earth, as much as he could. And he wanted her join them. How could she refuse?

“Fine,” she said into her phone just as the voices of the three angels she could hear on the other end of the line formed another chord of literally unearthly beauty. She didn’t quite get why he would want her to spoil all that so much, but if he didn’t think she would, fine with her.

“Lovely,” he said between one text line and the next, and hung up just as the song reached another repetition of the chorus.

She put her phone away, still smiling.

Despite all that, she couldn’t help but feel sad for the unnamed young man. If things had turned out differently, maybe he would be in her place now, wondering what he might have done in a former life to deserve all this and knowing at the same time that there had been no former life, and that it all came down to divine machinations.

Would he have been able to accept that Lucifer was the Devil? Would he have been able to love him, despite knowing what he was? Or would their relationship have been built on a lie, like Sachiel’s with his first love had been?

Well. Who knew, and frankly, who cared? This was Chloe’s life, thank Lucifer’s Dad, and she wasn’t going to waste it with what ifs. Time to collect her daughter and to see how well she could hold her own in close harmony with three angel voices.

 

* * *

 

But this day wasn’t done being weird yet.

“NYPD is requesting your partner, Chloe,” Lt Monroe told Chloe over the phone as she was driving to Lux. “Seems news of what he can do has traveled all the way across the country.”

She felt a sharp stab of… something. Possessiveness, maybe. Jealousy? Fear of losing him? “‘Requesting’?” she stalled. “That mean he can refuse?”

“I have no details as yet,” Olivia admitted. “If lives are at stake though….” She let her voice trail off meaningfully.

“Have you asked him?”

“Not yet. Thought I’d get your input first.”

Chloe ground her teeth. If the case NYPD were working on really was important and couldn’t be solved without Lucifer’s special skill set, then she couldn’t in good conscience refuse to lend her partner out to them, even though all her instincts screamed at her to keep him close. Not because she didn’t trust him. Okay, maybe she didn’t completely trust him to keep himself in check whenever a given situation brought out his dark side and she wasn’t there to calm him down.

“We’re a package deal,” she finally said. “If he’s going, so am I.”

“Of course,” Olivia said, sounding surprised. “I wouldn’t dream of breaking up the LAPD’s most successful partnership.”

Chloe relaxed. “Good. In that case, if you could send me the details when you have them, we’ll look it over and give you our decision.”

She hung up, chewing her lip.  She couldn’t deny that there were situations where human methods simply didn’t cut it. Now, New York PD couldn’t do without the Devil. What next? Washington, D.C. finding themselves out of their depth? How about somewhere in Europe? If she read the signs right, there was a lot of traveling in her and Lucifer’s future. He’d probably enjoy that, but she had a daughter, and….

_ Well. How about not getting ahead of yourself, Decker? Taking things as they come is the way to go here. _

“Are you and Lucifer going on a trip?” Trixie asked from the back seat.

“Don’t know yet, Monkey. Maybe.”

“Are you going to catch a killer?”

“Don’t know that yet, either.”  _ Wait for it…. _

“Can I come, too?”

Chloe sighed. “Trix, you know we couldn’t take you with us to work. You’d just be bored waiting. Besides, I don’t think we could ask anyone to come along to watch you while we’re out, so….”

There was audible pouting from the back seat, but Chloe Decker had withstood the full brunt of the Devil’s pouts, and without eye contact, Trixie didn’t have access to her full arsenal. Mommy - 1, Monkey - 0.

 

* * *

 

They’d done the choir thing, which definitely constituted the apex of strangeness for today. Chloe didn’t think she’d ever be able to listen to Coldplay’s Viva La Vida in quite the same way again. Nor did she think she’d ever be able to sing like that again. Being in angelic company clearly had side effects she hadn’t been aware of.

When the other two angels had finally descended into Lux to continue sampling earthly delights - Lucifer had made a few off-color remarks about using protection that Sachiel hadn’t found funny at all -, the Devil had made dinner, aided and abetted by Trixie, while Chloe (with strict instructions to take a load off) had lounged on Lucifer’s couch enjoying the sunset and residual endorphins released during singing. Dinner had been followed by an impromptu pool party that had somehow segued into a night flight over the ocean. Nobody had bought Trixie’s claim that they were only doing it because Lucifer’s feathers would dry faster that way. And, yes, Lucifer totally was putty in Trixie’s hands, but what else was new.

Afterwards, with Lucifer’s wings groomed and Trixie safely conducted into dream land, they were lying together with the lights off, and Chloe was glad she wasn’t twenty-one anymore. If she were, she surely wouldn’t have been able to keep her hands off the former King of Hell, especially when he gave her  _ that  _ look.

“Not tonight, Satan,” she whispered regretfully. “Trixie’s in the next room. There are no doors. I couldn’t.”

“She’s got to learn about these things at some point,” the tempter purred.

_ Okay, change of subject, stat. _ “How would you feel about working with NYPD?”

She could see him blink in the dim light that filtered in from outside. “I don’t want to work with anyone but you,” he said, and Chloe could have kissed him for it.

She did kiss him for it. “Word’s getting around,” she said softly, her hands buried in his hair and his dark eyes close to hers. “Other departments are discovering that they have access to someone who’s invulnerable and really fast and can prevent things from going sideways where they couldn’t. This isn’t the last time they’re gonna ask you.”

He hugged her close, and she could feel his lips against her neck. “I’m a consultant for the LAPD, not for anyone else. I’m only doing this if I can do it by your side.”

“I’d come with,” she pointed out.

“Not the point.” She felt him smile against her skin and his fingers draw patterns on her back. “Sachiel could use a new task, though. Change of location, too. Would do him a world of good.”

She blinked. That actually made a lot of sense.

“I’ll ask him,” Lucifer purred, breathing hot air against Chloe’s neck and shoulder and making her nipples harden.

“Lucifer,” she sighed, but she could hear her surrender in her own voice, and at long last, the day went back to being normal.


End file.
